Rand Paul Denounces 'Dystopian Nightmare' Of NSA Surveillance

Jonathan Ernst/ReutersSenator Rand Paul has launched another broadside against government surveillance from the liberal bastion of Berkeley university.

The standard bearer of the right and potential Republican presidential candidate earned a standing ovation on Wednesday evening by warning of "dystopian nightmares" unless intelligence agencies were reined in.

"The question before us is: will we live as free men and women or will we cower and give up our liberty?" Paul told a packed audience of students and staff. "I'll fight for every American's privacy and I hope you will stand with me. Take a stand for liberty."

The junior senator from Kentucky used the unusual platform of a leftwing crucible to renew his recent attacks on the National Security Agency, saying Democrats and Republicans alike faced threats to their privacy.

"I'm here to tell you that the NSA believes equal protection means all Americans should be spied upon equally, including Congress."

His colleagues in Washington quailed before the spooks, he said. "I perceive fear of an intelligence community drunk with power, unrepentant and uninclined to relinquish power."

Wearing boots, jeans, a white shirt and red tie, with no jacket, the 51-year-old senator apparently hoped to broaden his libertarian base, which favours minimal government, by tapping leftwing passions in advance of a possible 2016 White House bid.

Paul, the son of libertarian talisman and former congressman Ron Paul, has cast himself as a privacy champion since Edward Snowden's revelations about NSA snooping. He has filed a lawsuit, naming himself as co-plaintiff, to challenge the agency's mass surveillance of domestic phone records.

"If you own a cellphone you're under surveillance. I believe what you do on your cellphone is none of their damn business!" he said, prompting loud applause.

A similar line got the same enthusiastic response at last week's Conservative Political Action Conference (CPac) - an annual litmus test for the Republican base - highlighting Paul's unique appeal to both ends of the political spectrum. His father drew a similarly enthusiastic crowd at Berkeley in April 2012.

The younger Paul's critique of surveillance has put him alongside Senator Dianne Feinstein, a California Democrat. Normally an ally of Barack Obama, she has put the president in an awkward position by accusing the CIA of conducting unauthorised searches of computers used by Senate intelligence committee staffers. The CIA director, John Brennan, has denied the allegation.

Paul said he worried about who was in charge of the government and called for a select committee on investigations, insisting it should be bipartisan, independent and wide reaching.

"Most of you have read the dystopian nightmares and maybe, like me, you doubted that it could ever happen in America."

Ronald Reagan famously called Berkeley a "haven for communist sympathisers" but Paul urged his audience to embrace the rich. "We have to get over this class warfare … the top 1% pay 40% of the income tax."